by many she was supposed to be immensely rich; and by a few, some lady of
quality _incog_. Many, however, asserted, that her jewels were glass; her
gold, tinsel, and her glittering ornaments, beads sewed upon pasteboard.
Nevertheless, in the very face of this shameful detraction, to her
delightful little soirées flocked the best families in the town, (there
were not many,) the heads of houses, (scarcely room had they in her
mansion for their bodies,) and many a, fellow, senior and junior, of many
a college in----. I had the honour of attending sometimes at these
parties, of which all that I remember at present is, that the sugar was
nipped into pieces so small, as to oblige those who liked their tea sweet
to put in two or three spoonsfull, instead of an equal _quantum_ of
lumps, to the astonishment and visible dismay of the waiters. There was
generally, too, a sad deficiency in cake; and, oh! when the negus was
handed round,----Well, perhaps her nephews drew largely upon her stock of
wine; or the widow possibly thought her young men got too much of that
commodity in _our_ parties, and therefore needed it less in her own. As
to the senior members of the university, I never could comprehend the
reasons that induced their endurance of such an aqueous beverage.
Sometimes I have attributed their visits to Mrs. Welborn's merely to a
ramification of that system of espionage which she thought proper to
employ upon her nephews, and they to extend indiscriminately towards
every undergraduate; whereas being myself a well-intentioned, modest
young man, mine own honour has seemed grievously insulted; but again, may
not _vanity_, the hope, paramount in the breast of every individual, of
being admired by "_a fortune_," have influenced these old gentlemen to
swallow lukewarm potations, (_minus_ wine, lemon, and sugar,) which were
a kind of nutmeg broth? I can certainly aver, that old Rightangle, of our
college, was, or pretended to be, desperately enamoured with the gay
widow; indeed, his doleful looks at one period, and his shyness of the
fair lady in question, were to me pretty evident proofs that he had made